


Reaping What's Been Sewn

by Kelly_the_Ferret



Series: Leviathan Depths [18]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21939421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelly_the_Ferret/pseuds/Kelly_the_Ferret
Summary: Aziraphale and Gabriel go back to Heaven to give the final report about the conclusion of the leviathan mess, only to find that Heaven is a mess.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: Leviathan Depths [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538272
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Reaping What's Been Sewn

**Author's Note:**

> Second to last chapter!! I'm hoping to finalize the ending tomorrow; got a long road trip. 
> 
> Happy Yuletide!

The archangel and principality arrived at Heaven's gates with some difficulty. The two angels had to resort to flying up the last twenty meters of escalator due to a thronging crowd of unprocessed souls. Aziraphale rolled his eyes at the still-shuttered security kiosk at the gates, and he followed his superior as Gabriel's commanding presence made an opening in the crowd. The angels forged ahead into the plaza.

"Wait, what are you doing here?" the archangel loudly asked. 

Aziraphale peered around the taller angel's shoulder to see Beelzebub standing on exceptionally tall shoes in the center of the front plaza, giving her a head and shoulders above the crowd. 

"I came to dizzcover the cauze of the zzzzoul freeze. Hell hazn't had anyone prozezzzed in for nearly a week." the Prince of Hell nearly shouted over the general hub-bub.

Gabriel balked, "Seriously? What's been going on around here?" He turned to the principality with orders, "Aziraphale, start the processing gate back up. I'll find out where the breakdown happened." He lastly addressed Beelzebub, "We should... talk business later."

The demon's face remained unperturbed. "No need. Your buzinezz haz been bland lately. I'm engaging zzzeveral new partnerz." With that, the Prince was gone.

Aziraphale fought to reach the security office with strained politeness. He was both shocked and relieved to find the kiosk empty once he shuffled enough room to squeeze the door open. The owner of the silver tie on the doorknob had clearly departed before the mob of souls had formed and had simply left the accessory behind. 

The principality hung his coat and rolled up his sleeves, but he was not prepared for the crowd of eager faces at the window once the shutters were thrown back. "Now, now! No need to rush eternity!" he called with an attempted smile. The makeshift gatekeeper grabbed a clipboard, put a pencil behind his ear, and placed a glowing hand on the arm of the soul nearest his elbow. Soon, a trickle of Heaven- and Hell-bound souls were streaming away from the kiosk.

Meanwhile, Gabriel arrived at the Council hall. He cautiously opened the doors to be greeted by the bright, airy atmosphere he was accustomed to seeing. However, the only figure in the room was Selaphiel, who was sitting in a lotus position on the Council table with his eyes closed. The other archangel was dressed in a loose blue tunic and matching trousers. His feet were bare and his hair was still loose.

Gabriel tried and failed to get the meditating warrior's attention. He moved closer and gingerly brushed the figure's hand. Selaphiel's eyes snapped open and he flew to his feet on the table. His wings flopped uselessly as he worked to untangle himself from the wire to a pair of earbuds.

"Gabriel!" Selaphiel gasped with an edgy air of exhaustion. "Good to see you, brother! As you can see, things are not well!".

The newcomer snapped two comfortable chairs into existence in front of the table, and the pair sat.

Selaphiel waved his scenser out from behind the table and started a sandalwood-scented smoke burning. "After your visit, Michael was fit to be tied! She packed a carpetbag and announced that she was going to the Andromeda Galaxy. 'Going to see the sights,' she said. Nothing I could say or offer her could convince her to stay. And after she left, I found out the hard way that one Council member cannot conduct the business! I was powerless to handle personnel issues or change duty rotations. I could not even veto any of your sabbaticals to get help!" he explained.

Gabriel shook his head. "We've never had anything like this happen before. Well, where do we start?"

* * * * *

Back at the gates, Aziraphale nearly jumped out of his corporation when two younger angels suddenly appeared on either side of him. "Principality A!" a cheerful bloke in silver and powder blue greeted him enthusiastically. The angel turned to his counterpart and exclaimed, "Hey, check it out, he's gone totally old-school! Look at him hand-processing all these souls like a righteous force!"

"Hard core!" the other angel, who wore brown dreadlocks and a pistachio-colored suit, agreed. "I'm gonna fire up the auto-gateways!" He turned and moved a sequence of levers on the wall.

A long row of blinking gateways rose from the floor. Aziraphale was reminded of the airport security checkpoints that Crowley had been so proud of implementing around the turn of the current century. Within minutes, the unruly crowd was funnelling through the bank of gates from both directions. The principality's trickle of processed souls surged into a flood.

* * * * *

In the Council house, Michael was the last of the archangels to return. 

"Anything else you guys just crammed into the 'ineffable' cabinet?" Gabriel was asking as the latecomer was seated.

A sturdily built figure with olive skin and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail lazily answered, "What does it even matter now? Everything is subject to some ineffability, so eventually all files will end up under that heading." He spoke in a Middle Eastern accent which resonated richly through his shapely beak-like nose while he dusted flour off of his hands onto a white apron.

"Barachiel, we still have to keep track of things!" Gabriel snapped. "We still have to watch out for unnatural events."

Jegudiel rocked his large chair backwards, and braced a white alligator skin boot on the table, striking a pose that would have drawn disdain even from Crowley. "I disagree, man. I think the Almighty gave us a pretty clear new message; que será, será."

"Since when do you talk like you're from California?" Gabriel squinted irritably at the would-be musician, and added "And lose the mohawk! Lavender is not your color."

Jegudiel rolled his heavily gold-rimmed eyes dramatically. "Okay, Grandpa!"

Gabriel glared, preparing to put his coworker in his place, but Selaphiel cut him off with a gentle tone. "Brother, what is the issue, really? No real harm was done, and we've learned to keep at least two of us up here."

“You _can_ look at it that way, sure!” Gabriel pushed back. “All those people that got killed while the Behemoth hadn’t roared, say they were meant to go that way. But if we can stop something like that from happening again, aren’t we _meant_ to?”

“Who knows?! It’s… Ineffable!” Uriel called out darkly with equal parts drama and sarcasm.

Gabriel could hardly believe what he was hearing. He shifted his approach. "Well, okay, here's something that we can say for sure: the Kraken has now been properly put back to rest at the bottom of the ocean, but he's only got a thin layer of rock over him right now. If anything disturbs him, this whole mess could start right back up again. We could be back in the same situation in a year."

Michael raised an eyebrow and shot a pointed look in response. "And?"

The dissenting archangel gaped at his companions. He looked between their faces with a bewildered expression as he suggested, "Aaaand we should probably set up some kind of barrier near the Kraken? Or maybe post a few sentries?"

Michael shrugged. "That sounds like a human problem to me. What happens on Earth is of very little concern to us now. Why should we waste resources pulling angels away from their pursuits just as they gained some independence?"

Gabriel was about to drop his forehead against the tabletop when Aziraphale burst into the Council house with the two angels from the gatehouse. The pair of younger angels braced their backs against the heavy doors while the principality rushed towards the table. “Call security!” he shouted over the sound of pounding at the doors.

"What's the problem now?" A bored-sounding Uriel asked.

"The recently deceased -- the ones who died from the Behemoth madness -- are turning restless! They're running amok, actually trying to _harm_ anyone they find!" Aziraphale shouted.

"Calm yourself, little one," Selaphiel responded reassuringly. "We have only to ease their minds and all will be well," he explained while starting his scenser with a smoke that immediately took the principality back to a beautiful dream of the Garden.

One of the doors bounced open briefly, and two Lost souls wildly rushed in. They sprinted towards the Council table with vacant eyes and teeth bared. Heedless of one another, they twisted and clawed at the ring of archangels that immediately surrounded them.

Neither the smoke nor the flashes of healing light seemed to have any effect on the interlopers. "Box them in!" Michael ordered, and the two Lost were immediately contained in an invisible pen.

"What is the meaning of this?" Barachiel demanded.

Aziraphale rushed back to the doors, adding his weight to the thundering barricade. "As I said! Some of the souls we were processing began to descend into madness!" he called in a panic. "They're acting like Howard was!" he threw at Gabriel.

"Okay, we need to put a stop to that," Gabriel responded with authority.

"Oh, stuff it! You aren't in charge," Michael sneered. She blinked and added, "But this _is_ a nuisance. Selaphiel, take Barachiel and these two," she indicated the gatehouse angels, "to the edge of the Persian Quarter and open a new sector; make it a containment zone. The rest of us will summon a battalion to deal with this."

Silent nods passed between the archangels as knuckles cracked and wings unfurled. Jegudiel hunched into an offensive crouch, suddenly holding a sleek crown in one hand and an ornately braided gold whip in the other. Michael pulled a gleaming sword from an invisible scabbard at her hip, which she raised to a striking position. Uriel rolled her left hand and was holding a large black disc with a polished surface that glittered with tiny constellations of white gems. She shook the disc and it sprouted a row of jagged teeth along its edge while she drew a flaming sword from her back with her right hand. Gabriel stretched and was holding a golden scepter which he hefted like a mace. He motioned for the principality to move to stand with the fighters.

Aziraphale looked alarmed, but did as he was bid. Gabriel passed him a sword whose balance and flame were quite familiar, murmuring, "I will need that back. Don't lose it!" with a serious look.

Selaphiel and Barachiel moved to flank the two angels who were still desperately working to keep the doors closed. Michael shouted, "Go!" and the party by the doors flashed away.

The doors burst open, spilling reaching bodies into the room. A near-blinding light radiated from Michael, stunning the members of the initial onslaught. "Keep them penned until we have a place for them!" she called out. Aziraphale waved a hand, and those Lost were moved into the enclosure with the first two.

The golden crown and celestial disc zoomed out towards the doors repeatedly, striking any more Lost who attempted to enter. "Move out! We'll keep them walled in here for now!" Gabriel ordered. 

"On me!" Jegudiel called out, as he pressed attackers back through the door with whip and crown. The warriors advanced through the door, which was promptly sealed behind them by a temporary wall, summoned by Michael's hand.

Gabriel pulled out a bugle (not The Trumpet, Aziraphale was relieved to note) and blasted the same tune that summoned Heaven's forces for the Armageddon that Wasn't. Confused angels dressed in all manner of Earthly garb began to appear around them. "No time for formation; just get the violent ones contained!" Aziraphale ordered as he sent another three Lost inside the Council house. 

The archangels around the principality fought with a fluidly coordinated grace, and the new arrivals quickly joined in. He found he remembered his own combat skills quite readily, as he fended off a crowd of faces with gnashing teeth. He felt the blood drain from his face as he watched a seraph who arrived unprepared and too close to the fray get pinned down and bitten by two Lost in an instant. He fought to free the angel, who was dragged to safety and healed by Gabriel.

Aziraphale pointed to Her office building, an enormous, shining skyscraper that overlooked Heaven's districts. "Can you move the rally point to the globe floor?" he pleaded. "This is rather disorienting to the troops!"

"Right." Gabriel nodded resolutely and was gone with a flash. The bugle sounded again, and in the archangel’s place, an orderly stream of armed host began to join the fight.

Aziraphale was starting to wonder how many more Lost souls could fit into the council house when Selaphiel appeared at his side. "A heads-up would have been appreciated," the archangel panted, jerking a thumb at the walled-off Council house as he swept his disheveled hair out of his face. "Anyway, it is ready." The principality ordered a unit to begin transporting Lost to the new district. 

In Heaven, time functions on a sliding scale. When all is well and the majority of the host are joyful, time expands. In those conditions, a minute of Heaven's time lasts a dog year. Conversely, when discord is brewing in Heaven, time contracts. For example, the three day trial that led to Lucifer's fall took place in the space of an afternoon. Or, it would have if afternoons had been invented at that point. 

At the peak of the battle of the Lost, someone watching from Earth with, say, a crystal ball, would only have seen swirling blurs of color. As souls were transported to the Lost District one by one, the blurs would have taken shape into frenetic angels engaged in a jerkily choreographed blend of movements. Time's magnitude expanded gradually, and as the final Lost soul was brought to heel, the Heavenly Host's first and only dance waltzed to a halt. 

Aziraphale rubbed his aching sword arm as he took in the scene around him. Angels of all ranks were comforting and healing one another. They wore faces that ranged from exhausted to agonized to grief-stricken. He spied Gabriel among the crowd and moved his sore corporation towards the archangel. Gabriel gathered him into a hug, guiding his head to rest on a lavender shoulder where Aziraphale sobbed silently. 

Once he was able to draw a steady breath, he lifted his face. "Oh dear. I'm afraid your jacket will never be the same," he lamented.

"Don't worry about it," the archangel said softly.

With a snap, the principality shifted to a feminine form. She placed a hand on Gabriel's cheek and pulled him into a delicate kiss. 

The pair broke apart on hearing a familiar voice rasp, “Oh, thank fuck,” in relief. Crowley had somehow managed to wander over without either angel noticing him. He shoved his glasses into a jacket pocket, and squeezed the pair of angels tightly, burying his face between Aziraphale’s hair and Gabriel’s shoulder.

“My love, how did you - What are you doing here?” the principality remarked.

The demon pulled back with a sniffle and placed his glasses back into position. “Checking on you. I was dead to the world in my cabin on the Wreckless, when I was woken up by a horrible thunking noise, like knocking on glass. I couldn’t place it, but when I walked past the mirror, Hastur’s ugly mug leered out at me, large as life. He looked disgustingly happy - well everything he does is disgusting, really - and he wanted me to stop in downstairs to place bets on a new game he’d invented. Apparently, we had an influx of souls unexpectedly, and some were uncontrollably bloodthirsty. So of course, he set up a fighting pit.”

“I thought you grew bored of gambling in the 1950’s,” Aziraphale commented.

“He doesn’t know that. He just likes to watch me lose. Anyway, I just had an awful feeling that I should make sure you were ok. When I got to the top of the escalator, it was bedlam, and no one was bothered about me strolling right in. Crazed souls kept trying to attack me, so I started fighting alongside your lot. Then, when it was all over, I couldn’t find you two, and there was talk of scads of discorporations…” Crowley trailed off, unable to voice his fears. 

“We’re fine,” Gabriel gently reassured the demon. He caught a tear that sneaked out from behind the dark glasses with his thumb, and continued, “We should get you out of here. There’s going to be enough confusion without them making a scapegoat out of you.”

Crowley chuckled and waved a hand dismissively. “What will they do? Burn me at the stake? Put me on trash detail?”

The archangel couldn’t stop a wry grin. “Let’s not find out. Aziraphale, can you go with him? Make sure he stays put with Vince? I should stick around for a few ‘I told you so’s,” he put to the principality.

Aziraphale nodded and guided the demon towards the gates by the elbow. “Hopefully a few Lost went wild near Hastur first,” she said seriously as they stepped onto the escalator.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my Kudosers & Commenters! This project has been a surprising journey, and your support has made it worthwhile!


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